Race to the bottom
Aug. 3rd, 2011 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oselleSistermagpie on LJ linked to this article the dreadful NBC Mad Men ripoff, The Playboy Club.
After reading this, and after seeing a preview of the equally dismal Pan Am on ABC, it's painfully apparent that the hacks over at NBC and ABC have no idea what Mad Men is about or what makes it so great.
In fact, the only thing they seem to have gleaned from Mad Men is that the early 1960s were some kind of golden era when men were men and women were dames and that -- and only that -- is what we want. So we'll all tune in for these two incredibly lame copycats to see more of men being men (i.e. smoking and drinking and ogling dames) and women being dames (i.e. wearing big hairdos and torpedo bras and getting ogled).
If I were head of programming at either NBC or ABC I would be fucking embarrassed to roll out programs that are not only blatant ripoffs of a better show, but that didn't even attempt to rip off anything but the most superficial features of that better show. But no -- somebody greenlit this shit, obviously thinking that all they needed to duplicate Mad Men's success were costumes and cigarettes. And so it becomes more and more obvious to me all the time that most people in the entertainment industry didn't get there on talent.
After reading this, and after seeing a preview of the equally dismal Pan Am on ABC, it's painfully apparent that the hacks over at NBC and ABC have no idea what Mad Men is about or what makes it so great.
In fact, the only thing they seem to have gleaned from Mad Men is that the early 1960s were some kind of golden era when men were men and women were dames and that -- and only that -- is what we want. So we'll all tune in for these two incredibly lame copycats to see more of men being men (i.e. smoking and drinking and ogling dames) and women being dames (i.e. wearing big hairdos and torpedo bras and getting ogled).
If I were head of programming at either NBC or ABC I would be fucking embarrassed to roll out programs that are not only blatant ripoffs of a better show, but that didn't even attempt to rip off anything but the most superficial features of that better show. But no -- somebody greenlit this shit, obviously thinking that all they needed to duplicate Mad Men's success were costumes and cigarettes. And so it becomes more and more obvious to me all the time that most people in the entertainment industry didn't get there on talent.